My virtuous Grandma, years ago, told me a valuable leadership lesson that author Jim Collins made a fortune off of in his best seller titled, Good to Great. America read the book, swallowed it whole, yet failed to digest the lesson. Normal. Jim told the world of work if you’re gonna build a sustainable business the first thing you gotta get right is people, people, people. His wisdom was around a bus analogy. According to Jim, you gotta get the right people in the right seats on the bus. Good.
This wisdom wasn’t first or foremost, however. First, assuming you are running anything but a start up in it’s early, freakin’ early infancy, you gotta do something else. Do you remember this? Are you digesting this if you can recall? Have you made this your second nature if you’ve digested this truth and now made it a bolted on discipline?
According to Jim Collins the good to great leader, first, gets the wrong people off the bus. First, you fire the wrong people out the back of the bus. I mean you swing that back door open and you get the wrong ones off in a hurry. Why was Collins so cold, you may ask. I’m guessing ’cause he had a Grandma kinda like mine. She told him like mine told me – One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.
Why my really nice, weak, normal American leader are you moving your problems from seat to seat on your bus? Why are you waiting so long to determine you’ve got a bad apple in your bushel? Why?
One bad apple spoils the bunch is a popular, old saying because there is some wisdom inherent in the words. Extrapolate to you and your bushel. Today, during a fun practice with a team of ten leaders we took an inventory of our apples. The vast majority were good. A few were a little soft and there might have been one or two that were rotten. Good. Now you know why good to great is so hard. Now you know why good, according to Collins, is the enemy of great. Good. NOT great…
What kinda bushel you building, my nice, soft, politically correct, weak, and really good kinda guy/gal?
BUILT TO LEAD 